


maybe i’m a bad, bad, bad, bad person

by politicalmedievalistnerd



Series: Modern Verse [2]
Category: 15th Century CE RPF, The White Queen (TV)
Genre: 1990s, Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Child Disappearance, Depressing sex, Depression, Disassociation, F/M, Internalised Misogyny, Modern Era, Morally Ambiguous Character, Morbid, Sex, Teenage Marriage (mentioned), The Princes in the Tower - Freeform, mentioned Isabel Neville/George Duke of Clarence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-07 20:02:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19857229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmedievalistnerd/pseuds/politicalmedievalistnerd
Summary: But they are all dead now, and if she wasn’t winning against the dead, it would be a poor thing indeed. ////// The boys are gone, and Richard and Anne are the prime suspects. They can only take comfort in each other.





	maybe i’m a bad, bad, bad, bad person

**October 1996**

Her bones ache. They have ached for days. Maybe they will ache until she dies. The police have left after another long day of questioning, and she walks up the creaking stairs of the York family home to the bedroom she shares with her husband. She stops on the landing to close the curtains, and cameras flash, reflecting off the glass window. Tomorrow, a blurry picture will be on the front page of her, wide-eyed, exhausted, with a wrinkled forehead and grays budding in the roots of her hair. The titles will be ‘ **ANNE NEVILLE AGED BY NEPHEWS’ DISAPPEARANCE’** and  **‘NEVILLE CRACKS UNDER PRESSURE’** and ‘ **AUNTY ANNE CAN COVER UP A MURDER, BUT CAN SHE COVER UP HER WRINKLES?’.** It doesn’t matter. She walks up the rest of the stairs and locks the bedroom door behind her. 

“Richard,” she says. Her husband looks up at her. The television groans out the 24-hour coverage. Her feet plod across the floor, and the bed creaks as she sits. Her fingers brush his shoulder. He is stone cold. “Richard.” His eyes are on the screen again. She leans into him, resting her head on his shoulder. His pulse races, the vein in his neck bulging. Anne tilts her head sidewards and presses a kiss to the overworked vein, and feels the muscles relax slightly, into her. Lightly, she flicks her tongue against the offence, and it pumps faster.

“Anne,” he says. She opens her mouth wider. “Anne, they think I’ve killed them. I read it in the tabloids. They think I murdered them.” Anne reaches down and grabs his hand, holding it tightly. “Anne. They’re saying I murdered my nephews. The boys.” He wrenches his neck away, taking her chin in his free hand. His thumb and forefinger press hard through the fat of her cheeks against her gums, and his nails dig in. “They think I’ve killed him.” She inclines her head slightly, pressing her chin into the stretch of skin between his finger and thumb. Hot tears run down her face.

“I know,” she whispers, casting one weary eye to the closed window as though the press may burst in at any moment. “They think I’m complicit.” And their assumption is not entirely incorrect; Anne is complicit in everything Richard does, and has been since she ran away with him as a teenage bride. Funnily enough, almost, Anne and Richard are the picture-perfect couple that her father always believed Isabel and George should have been. But they are all dead now, and if she wasn’t winning against the dead, it would be a poor thing indeed. Her bones hurt down to the marrow and she envies her sister for a minute. At least her bones do not ache. 

“Edward is asleep?” he asks.

“Soundly,” she confirms. “The door is padlocked, and I tested the bars. They can’t get in through the windows. He is safe.” And the sole fruit of all their labours is kept under lock and key, hopefully safer than their nephews were. Richard lets go of her chin and instead cradles her temples, two fingers pressed against each. 

“They say I’m a killer, Anne. A murderer. In cold blood. Out of envy of children. Out of greed. Out of hatred for my brother.” Anne stares him down.

“They say I’m a poisoner,” she tells him. “A murder. In cold blood. Out of envy of Isabel, out of greed for mother’s estate, out of hatred for my sister.”

“It wasn’t you,” Richard says. “It was that Ankarette.”

“You and I are killers,” Anne says, and she finds herself laughing. “English Bonnie and Clyde.” It’s as ridiculous as the last week, as the media circus, as the idea that her nephews are not asleep upstairs, sharing a room with Isabel’s boy. The tears run into her mouth, mixing with the strange slickness on her lips one seems to get when they’ve been crying for too long. Her laughter echoes and Richard grabs her tightly and pulls her mouth against his, devouring her. 

“Anne,” he whispers, grabbing at her, and she wraps her arms around his neck. Whoever they are, whatever they are whatever they’ve  _ done,  _ they love one another. She cannot get close enough to him. Her knees push into the mattress as she climbs on top of him. His fingers rub the knot in her back. “Anne. What if they do?”

“Do?” she questions, stroking a lock of his hair. He is graying at the roots. There are enough anti-ageing solutions and creams and pills in their bathroom cabinet to turn an aged oak to a seed, but it does not stop their grays. “Do what?”

“Arrest me.” She sinks more of her weight into him, feeling it, hungering. “On suspicion.” Her nose brushes his, and she can smell his tears. One runs down the pale hairs above her lip and lingers on her cracking lips. Anne gives it back to him in a kiss. He leans back under her force. Opens his mouth. His arms tighten around her. She grips his shoulders, digging her brittle nails in, and one breaks. 

“Then I-” she breathes, “-will surely-” plants another kiss to his lips, “-be your-” grabs his hair, “-accomplice.” 

Maybe it is instinct, maybe familiarity, but it is happening before she knows it. With each thrust, her insides wither a little more, another inch of her heart turns to stone. There will never be enough life in Anne again for them to have another child. She does not have enough life for herself. Perhaps she sucks it out of her sickly son, perhaps she is the vampire of folklore, bathing in the blood of the young. Perhaps she looks at Isabel’s daughter and sees what she should be. Perhaps the boys were killed for their youth, for what was left of the vitality that was smothered in their bedroom. 

“I am the most hated man in England at this moment,” he tells her, his idea of dirty talk.

“They hate me more. They will always hate a woman more.” She thinks of Elizabeth Woodville as it ends, and the bitch’s permanently smug face. Bitterness can be a substitute for vitality, for a little while, for long enough. 

They lay down, and pull up the covers. They both know neither will sleep. Richard will return to the news-watching in five minutes, and Anne will spend a few hours pretending to sleep. If her limbs are not too stiff, it may be a reality. She shuts her eyes, and thinks of evil women. Of bad women. Of hags and witches and bitches. Wonders which she will fall under, when she is dead. It keeps her up.


End file.
